Experts react to January home sales, which dropped 37.1%

Canadian home sales were down 37.1 per cent in January compared with a year earlier, according to new figures from the Canadian Real Estate Association. Here's what experts are saying about the latest Canadian home sales.

Here's what experts were saying Wednesday about the numbers:

Rishi Sondhi, economist at TD Bank

"Moving forward, housing activity could bottom sometime in the first half of this year, supported by a solid job market, robust population growth and the likelihood that yields grind lower. Moreover, the level of new listings remains low, offering no signal (yet) that forced selling is meaningfully pushing up supply. The risk to the outlook is that regulators are looking to impose tighter lending standards on federally regulated financial institutions, a move that could weigh on housing demand."Douglas Porter, chief economist at Bank of Montreal